The government that boasted of being the most social in history could not reach the end of the legislature without addressing the serious problem of housing in Spain. It has cost God and help for the progressive parties to agree on a text that would overcome their differences, but it was a necessity to guarantee the population access to affordable housing, and even more so now after the ECB’s interest rate hikes, which have meant a serious problem for homeowners with variable mortgages.
Access to housing has become one of the biggest problems in Spanish society, as CIS surveys attest year after year. It remains to be seen if this law will be the solution, if it will further complicate the market or leave things as they are. If we have to pay attention to the first reactions of the real estate sector, we cannot be very optimistic, but it is also normal that if the law proposes a drastic limitation of rents, the sector is not going to start applauding the initiative.
What is clear is that it was time to make a decisive intervention in a market that was distorting between supply and demand. There are many factors, from the irruption of investment funds to the arrival of new visitors to the big cities, that were causing the expulsion of the residents. The rise in prices was already uncontrollable. The law was therefore necessary. However, it will be necessary to study the fine print carefully because excessive regulation can cause the supply and construction of rental housing to be reduced. This is one of the arguments of the opponents of this regulation.
This pact also leaves another political conclusion: the great capacity of Pedro Sánchez to end up reaching agreements that seemed impossible. For many months this bill was dozing in Congress due to the difficulty of the different parties to reach a consensus. With the 28-M elections just around the corner, it seemed that the law would be paralyzed as happened with the repeal of the so-called gag law (Citizen Security), but this has not been the case. Spanish democracy had a housing law pending. It was time.
